


Earth's Best Defender

by DustedSun



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Far from home is mostly canon, Found Family, Gen, Major Character death is cuz Tony, May didn't get dusted, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Adopts Everyone, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony kinda adopts Harley, We're not calling it the Blip, because angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 10:49:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19904521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustedSun/pseuds/DustedSun
Summary: In hindsight, Tony couldn’t believe he hadn’t done this sooner. But, in his defense, hindsight’s a bitch. Or is that karma? He wouldn’t know, that was Pepper’s area of expertise.In which Tony spends five years building a family.





	Earth's Best Defender

In hindsight, Tony couldn’t believe he hadn’t done this sooner. But, in his defense, hindsight’s a bitch. Or is that karma? He wouldn’t know, that was Pepper’s area of expertise.

“Obviously, the circuitry would have to be replaced.” Tony snapped himself out of his thoughts and turned to look at the sullen kid who had spoken from beneath his bangs. Harley wasn’t even old enough to be called a teenager, but he had his angst already trademarked. Something flared up in Tony’s gut at the thought, something between impressed, sad and grieving.

“The circuitry is fine, it’s the system that’s the problem,” he retorted, trying to bring up a smile. It was easier than he thought it would be, and it got easier when Harley looked at him with a fire in his eyes. Finally. There was that little asshole.

“The system works, Tony. It’s worked for months. It’s the circuits, I’m telling you.”

“We really can’t ever have a normal family dinner, can we?” Pepper oh-so-subtly remarked from the head of the table. But she was smiling, amused despite herself, as she tried to make sure Morgan would eat her smashed peas. She’d been relaxed and content, if not happy, since they bought this house after the wedding. Well, the eloping. It didn’t feel right to hold a ceremony with that many empty chairs.

“Pep, I keep telling you this is a normal family dinner topic.” Tony grinned back at her, and even Harley mustered up a smile. She rolled her eyes at both of them, and turned back to Morgan.

“Look, if you’re done, you can go to whatever room you’re calling the lab these days. Maybe replace that circuitry.” She muttered, deliberately not looking at either of them. Harley shot him a winning grin as he stood up.

“Whoa, whoa, we’re doing the dishes, Harls,” Tony said, holding out his arm in a half-hearted attempt to stop him from leaving. Harley froze, and then groaned.

“Do we _have_ to?” he whined, and Tony laughed.

“Yep! C’mon kid, I’ll help you.”

It only occurred to him somewhere between the second and third plate that he should have done this sooner. He should have come up with an excuse to invite Harley to a family dinner as soon as the kid told him that his sister had been claimed by the Dusting. But he’d been hurting, getting himself back on his feet, figuring out his place in the world and a million other excuses and he’d waited until Morgan switched to solid food to finally go through with it.

And Harley...he hid it well, but he was as destroyed as Tony had been. He just didn’t have as much experience getting himself through to somewhere healthy-ish. So he’d reached out to the kid, asked if he’d be willing to take a field trip one weekend so they could discuss… some new model of something the kid had come up with in English. He’d been shocked when the kid showed up a few hours later at the door, duffel bag and potato gun in tow.

The kid was comfortable in the lab, more comfortable than at dinner by a long shot. He flitted in between tables, talking about his design, presenting it for all his worth, and calling him old more than a few times. Something about how he was “outdated,” which he had responded with: “You know I fixed a spaceship right?”

Apparently, that was irrelevant and the ocean was cooler anyway, go fuck yourself, old man.

He doubled over laughing at that statement. Space vs. the ocean? That was insane, and he made sure that he told Harley so. If he picked an argument with the kid, he'd hopefully end up dragging himself out of the post-Snap funk.

That whole thing ended up lasting two hours, in which Harley referenced Star Trek, Star Wars, deep space objects, the new pictures of a black hole and a PHD level research paper, all within the same paragraph and with a thesis of “space sucks.” That, he had to note, was one of the few times that he had been rendered speechless.

This kid was impossibly smart, Tony Stark decided, as he fired back a counterpoint or another. And it was knife-twisting, how much he reminded him of Peter. He could feel his subconscious telling him to leave before he failed this kid too, the constant parade of _he’ll be ruined, it’ll be your fault, leave the kid alone, that’s the best thing for him._ And Tony considered it. He considered it for the whole two hours, going back to texting him dumb memes and nothing else. He considered it right up until Harley looked at Tony with the biggest puppy dog eyes right before he went to go brush his teeth and asked him if he could come again.

And Tony told him that he should come back the first weekend of the month, because the kid had smiled so much during the lab time that he almost couldn’t use his cheeks the next day.

* * *

It just so happened that Rhodey didn’t have a mission the third month this happened, and Tony told him that family dinner was going to be happening and he should totally come. Well, he phrased it with more showbiz than that, but that was the gist of it. Pepper decided that Happy should have a weekend off and come to dinner too.

Tony really didn’t want to think about why everyone was so glad for a family dinner. The Snap hadn’t spared anyone, and it had been a long year. He was just glad he still had as many people as he did.

“Oh hey, Rhodey made it,” Tony remarked as he heard the thunk of the armor on the roof. Harley squealed and Tony turned to see him dropping the soldering iron he was holding, nearly setting himself on fire.

“War Machine is here!?” Harley screeched, just as the circuitry he was working on actually caught on fire.

“Jesus Christ on a cracker, kid!” Tony shrieked, as DUM-E set his fire extinguisher on half of the lab. Harley had turned a bright shade of red as his mouth moved without any sound. “Oh my god, kid, are you actually speechless right now? This is a momentous occasion. F.R.I.D.A.Y., document this.”

Harley kept gulping for a good ten seconds after, making increasingly more distressed faces. He was still bright red, and Tony was starting to think that it wasn’t because of the soldering iron.

“Oh my god kid, don’t tell me your celebrity crush is War Machine,” Tony cackled as Harley kept trying to form actual words. “Really? I’m hurt,”

“S-Shut up!” Harley squeaked. “He’s just really cool,”

“I mean, you’re not wrong,” Tony said through his grin. “He’s coming to dinner, so… best behavior,”

Harley squeaked again, picked up the soldering iron, and started scraping through the extinguishing foam, muttering random phrases to himself.

Dinner was a nightmare. For Tony, at least. Everyone else had a fun time, because Happy opened a discussion with “Do you still keep that old Mustang in the garage?” and both Harley and Rhodey had instantly looked in his direction.

“A mustang? Like a mustang, mustang?” Harley had barely managed to keep himself together around Rhodey, as he turned into a stuttering mess. It almost felt like overcompensating for those long months of sullen silence, chattering so much that he hadn’t eaten a single bit of his chicken. Apparently, once someone mentions cars, he’s just fine.

“Tones, you still have that? The one you modified and then never let me drive?” Rhodey’s grin was teasing, as he leaned just slightly forward, ready to spring into action, a move he had trademarked back in MIT and one that Tony had learned to be wary around. Then again, he hadn’t seen Rhodey smile in a while. He didn’t think that was right, but he understood. He tried not to think about it, tried not to think about Peter, or Strange, or even Drax, Quill and that Mantis-girl, the way they just… didn’t exist any more. It was nice to look to the future and see hope there, for once, to see a nice farm with a playful little girl. Clint, wherever he was, had it right all those years ago.

“I mean, I think he always kept the keys somewhere under the potted plant outside the garage,” Pepper said, mimicking Rhodey’s pose. Wait, now Happy was doing the pose too. Tony didn’t like that.

He turned to see if Harley was doing it too, just to complete the set, but the kid had already put his dish in the sink and started sprinting to the garage.

“Wait kid, you haven’t taken Driver’s Ed yet, that doesn-” “I’ve played a lot of Mario Kart, Tony!” He called back. That little shit. Tony turned around to see if anyone was going to call it and Rhodey was gone too. Happy was halfway to the sink.

Within five minutes, Rhodey and Happy were taking turns at the wheel while Harley screamed his head off in the passenger seat. Tony blamed his high blood pressure on anger, especially when Harley was at the wheel and Rhodey gave him a crash course on driving. It turned into a spiel on piloting, and Harley had practically started taking notes.

“When did I become the mother hen?” he groused at Rhodey as he cleaned the car long after Harley had gone to sleep and Happy had driven himself home.

“When you gave us a family dinner, Tones,” Rhodey murmured softly, handing him the sponge.

Rhodey and Happy came the next month with a coordinated fruit basket. There was a little figurine in the middle. It was a 3-D printed Mustang. Goddammit Harley.

Tony changed his mind. Hindsight really was a bitch.

* * *

The sixth month, Nebula was on earth, just briefly, and Tony sent her a comm. She actually came, creeping into the lab so quietly that he didn’t notice it until he turned around.

“Nebs!” He exclaimed, nearly dropping the wrench he was holding. Nebula flinched, taking a few steps back. Tony gave her a quick one-armed hug as soon as he registered the fact that she was here, trying to stop her back-track. She wasn’t big on physical contact, but she liked hugs, he had learned.

“Hi.” was her only response, letting her arms go limp at her side.

“How’d those new modifications hold?” Tony asked her, looking at her faceplate and trying to find a decent conversation topic. Stranded in space for a few weeks left both not enough distance and too much between them. For now, they were trying out new materials that would last longer for her skull, that would still be comfortable, because Tony had still been doing a bit of Avengers consulting on the side. That was his family, dammit, he wasn’t going to just vanish.

“They…” She trailed off, looking towards the floor.

“So, not great.” he hummed as he took in Nebula’s downcast expression. “Damn. Really thought I got it this time.”

“It…itches,” Nebula muttered, and Tony’s eyes snapped up. That was a full complaint against someone in charge of modifications for her. She was starting to work around the “being raised by Thanos” bullshit. Progress! Well, relatively, anyway.

“Ok, sit down then, we have some time before dinner to run a few tests.”

“Tony, where’s Morgie’s toy?” Harley suddenly walked in, almost as quiet as Nebula even as he was holding a squirming Morgan in his arms. “She kinda really wants it.”

“Did you check the garage?”

“Yeah. Twice,” Harley put Morgan down and looked her dead in the eye. “No touching anything in here.”

Morgan responded by yanking on Harley’s hair, and he sighed as he picked her back up, looking at Tony as if to say “look at what I put up with.” This kid was way too young to be able to make that face.

“Oh, who’s…” Harley trailed off as he caught sight of Nebula, in the process of hooking herself up to the testing machine. Then his eyes widened and crinkled in the corners…almost like Peter used to. Shit wrong train, completely derailed, let’s try that again:

“Ah! Introduction time!” Tony said, clapping his hands and gesturing vaguely around the lab. “Harls, this is Nebula the space cyborg. Nebs, this is Harls the teenage pain-in-the-ass.”

“Aww, she gets space cyborg and I get pain-in-the-ass? You coulda mentioned my kickass soldering skills at least…” Harley whined playfully as he shifted his Morgan-carrying position so he could look at Nebula. “Hi! I’ve heard a lot about you!”

Nebula shifted her gaze to Tony, quietly questioning.

“He’s exaggerating.” He assured her. “Two stories at most,”

“Three!”

“Can it, Short stuff. I’m doing very important things to the moment, too important to check your bad math,”

“I’m gonna be taller than you, you can’t use that forever,” Harley’s face scrunches in embarrassment as he disputes the nickname

“Short stuff!” Morgan babbles and Harley scrunches even more

“She’s definitely shorter than me, she can’t call me that,”

“Pain-in-the-ass is without restriction,” Nebula murmurs quietly in response as she looks outside the lab window. Tony grins.

“Ha!”

Harley grumbles himself out of the lab, and comes back a few minutes later, still grumbling but without Morgan

“Happy found that damn toy. He’s doing his godfather thing, and I thought it best to leave him alone with that.”

“Watch your fucking language, pain-in-the ass,” Tony quips, eyes glued to the monitor. “Hey, you wanna play table football? This is going to take a while and I bet Nebs can beat you…”

“Hell no. I’m the reigning champion.” Harley shoots back, and he grabs a piece of paper and instantly starts folding it. Nebula shakes out her bad shoulder in a readying move as Harley boasts. “I got this.”

He does not. Nebula wins by at least three points, and by the end, she’s actually smiling and trash-talking Harley, in her own way. Harley looks more relaxed too, but he always gets more relaxed the more he talks. His mom has been spending less and less time in the house, and most of his friends got Dusted, so he’s probably just been lonely. He misses having a sister, and so does Nebula, even if neither of them mentioned it. For some reason, that’s enough for them to understand each other, and they strike up an easy conversation at dinner as Harley chews his way through half of the pasta. Teenage metabolisms are truly a powerful thing.

Harley and Happy both do the dishes after, and Rhodey and Nebula quietly talk to each other in a corner, discussing missions, shared pasts, whatever.

“So, I guess this whole thing worked out,” Tony said as he joined Pepper on the couch. Morgan was asleep with her head on Pepper’s lap, chewing on her toy. It almost looked like an arc reactor, if he squinted. Proof that Tony Stark Has a Heart.

“It was a good idea, Tony,” Pepper said, as she leaned her head on his shoulder. In a few minutes, she was also asleep, snoring quietly.

Tony dared a quick look back. Nebula and Rhodey had both left and Happy was telling Harley that he needed to go to sleep, to get those 8 hours as long as he can. He won’t admit it, but Happy misses having Peter around too.

“I guess it _was_ a good idea,” He muttered, and he drifted off.

* * *

The group dynamic stays static after that. Sure, Rhodey and Nebula rarely make it out, but they come when they can. Harley starts babysitting Morgan for date night and the house stays standing, which is always a good sign. He also makes friends, including a few young apprentices of some hero or another, making a sort of preliminary baby Avengers group. The highlight is when Bruce came to dinner once and Harley accidentally called him Professor Hulk. It stuck. Harley isn’t happy about it, but he’s happier than he was before.

Tony’s been trying not to think about the Snap too much. Harley isn’t Peter. Peter is gone. They’re all gone, and he’s moved on. He’s proud of everyone in the group for doing their best to handle it, at least as much as they can. But the two-year marker passes and Tony forces himself to rip off the goddamn Band-Aid.

He calls May Parker, and he invites her to dinner.

He still remembers when he went over and told her, a month after. He can never forget. She knew by then, of course she knew, but he owed her the courtesy of telling her in person. He couldn’t walk to the door on his own and he knew his clothes swallowed him, made him look as dead as Peter was and Steve thought he shouldn’t go. But he did. Peter’s death was on him. He deserved everything that was coming to him.

But she didn’t yell. She stared at him like she didn’t understand him, tears rolling down her face until her brain caught up with her. And then May Parker crumpled into herself and sank to her knees, and the only thing Tony could do was give her a hug and follow suit as they clung to each other crying, crying over a boy with a bright future all gone because of a snap, crying over a boy that they would never see again.

Tony Stark steels himself and asks May Parker over for a family dinner, because he never acted on the knowledge that, with Peter gone, May Parker was alone in the world. She always refused his help, responded with one-syllable answers to the emails. But he invites her anyway, and she shows up. She doesn’t talk much, she doesn’t eat much, but she shows up.

The next month, she shows up again, and she talks a bit more. Then the next, she’s playing hide-n-seek with Harley and Morgan, and Tony feels that their group is somehow complete.

It’s not perfect, not by any stretch. He makes up increasingly complex nicknames for Harley because he’s accidentally called him Pete one too many times. Harley still pushes people away when he gets scared that they hate him. Nebula glances to the side sometimes with a “Ga-“ on her lips, only to realize that Gamora isn’t there, or it she rolls her eyes at a Quill that’s long gone, or grumbles a quick “I am Groot,” sometimes before realizing no one will understand her. Rhodey, Happy and Pepper all go to a grief counselor, but he knows that they were either not close to their families or already had experience in the grief department. They just need to process the magnitude of it all. The still-active heroes all host a support group every now and then when one of them gets close to self-destructing.

Survivor's guilt is a terrible, terrible thing, but they move on with their lives, because that’s the only option that’s left. May has no one, he has Pepper and now Morgan. Rhodey, Happy, Nebula, hell, even Rocket, Okoye and Nat, they work off of what they have. They move forward, whether they want to or not.

The rest of the Avengers don’t have that luxury. Thor drinks himself to oblivion, because there’s only so many hits he could take before it happened. Steve lives one day at a time because he never had more of a future plan in mind. He longs for a past that he understands and has a plan for, reeling from this new future that he hadn’t been able to stop. Bruce merges himself with the Hulk so he’ll always be ready to fight, and Clint tries to kill even more people. He invites all of them at one point or another, even Clint, once he figures out a location for him. But none of them stay. They can’t. They’re lost, but Tony’s not sure if this is their way out.

Natasha and what’s left of the Avengers, they’re the only ones that are somewhere in the middle. When he asks her if she wants to join their little group, she smiles at him sadly.

“I don’t think I fit the bill,” she tells him, her blondish-red hair framing her tired face. She shows up when she drops of Nebula or Rhodey every month or two, staying for a snack or to teach Harley a quick trick under the guise of “technology report” before going back to her “Pre-Venging”. The fact that both of the others can fly is never remarked by either party.

The grief and guilt is terrible some days, Nat tells him one sunny May evening. But it’s survivable, just as it’s always been. They’re the ones that made it, so they’re the ones that have to soldier on. Tony passes her a granola bar on her way out, and tells her that he’ll look at updating her Widow Stingers as soon as he can. “Can’t soldier on with faulty equipment, right?”

She smiles at him in response. “Let me know, I’ll swing by and visit.”

For once, it pays off that both him and Nat are futurists at heart. They know what has to be done, he supposes. Take those hits and keep going. Whatever it takes.

* * *

Dinners come and go as the years roll on, and Tony’s happy. And relaxed. He’s never been more relaxed, not even before Afghanistan. He’s smiling more than he ever has as he sees Morgan grow into a little toddler, whip-smart already and when he hears the familiar tire treads as he walks back to the house with his daughter in his arms and a helmet balanced between them, he turns expecting to trade some quips with Natasha.

He sees Steve instead. And Scott Lang, alive for the first time in years. And that bliss he’s found suddenly feels very fragile indeed.

* * *

“I could bury it,” he tells Pepper, as Peter and Harley and Morgan and Nebula and hell, even Strange with his “It was the only way” tumbling through his head all at the same time.

“Would you be able to rest?” Is her only response, an understanding smile directed towards him. She’s grown too, he’s realized, and they’ve grown together. Damn this all to hell, she’s right. He can’t leave this alone, one passing thought of Peter being alive and living out his life crushing his will. He can’t just abandon him, can’t abandon the Dusted (or blipped, as Harley will not ever shut up about saying). So many people would be happier, and then his choice isn’t a choice anymore.

He shoves Steve’s shield in his trunk, makes sure to kiss both Morgan and Pepper goodbye in the morning, and he heads off to the Avengers compound ready to tackle the conundrum of time travel. He tells Steve that he won’t risk what he’s built, and weirdly enough, he’s not talking only about Morgan and the house. He’s talking about the family dinners, and the healing and bonding, and how he’ll do anything to stop that from vanishing.

* * *

Hindsight really is a goddamn bitch, Tony tells himself, as dread slices through his stomach. Strange lifts up one finger and Tony knows what he has to do. He’s already lost Natasha. He wasn’t going to lose any more people, not if he could do anything about it. Maybe it’s been coming to this ever since Titan, maybe since the Chitauri invaded, and he should have seen this coming. Only a god can kill a god, or maybe just a man in a can who’s lived among them.

Tony charges at Thanos and steals the stones. The giant grape tries to snap and Tony can feel his body stall. He’s replayed the Wakanda footage too many times not to be scared by that simple motion. But he has the stones now, and he lifts up his hand to prove it to himself as they shift up to their position.

“I am inevitable,” Thanos growls at Tony, furious but still smug. And he startles because suddenly he realizes…fuck that. He’s been haunted by Thanos for years, terrified he was going to come for everything he loved. That already happened. It would never happen again.

“I,” _Nothing is inevitable_ , Nat whispers through the soul stone. _We will always soldier on._

“Am,” _We will always fight those battles_ , Tony confirmed in his mind _those battles that they never could_. He’d join her soon, he could feel it. And Yinsen, Yinsen is there. _You didn’t waste your life, Stark._ No. That he didn’t do. At least he got to see Peter again.

“Iron Man,” Fuck you Thanos. I’ll see you burning in Hell before this day is over.

And he snaps his demon into oblivion.

* * *

He can’t move. His body is on fire. He sees Rhodey. Peter. Pepper. Pepper is here, and he can rest, she tells him. They have each other. And the great Iron Man, the great Tony Stark, he whispers a barely auditory: “Pep,”

He made it. He did it. They won. He’s the only one who lost the fight. They have each other. They’ll move on, like they have to.

And Tony joins Nat in the abyss.

* * *

It’s about a week after the Snap got undone. It’s been six days since Harley got the invite for this send off. It took him just under two days after that to get himself to New York and find a cheap motel just out of town.

He showed up four hours before it was scheduled to start, carrying a small bouquet of red and golden flowers he’d bought on the way here. Pepper was sitting on the front porch with Morgan and Happy, weaving a few flowers together around an old arc reactor and Harley choked. That was the first reactor, the one built in that cave so long ago.

That was about when it hit Harley that Tony wasn’t coming back, and Harley practically chucked his bouquet at Pepper and ran to the lake. His legs screamed with protest and his brain yelled at him to stop or to go back, but he didn’t, he couldn’t, and he ran until he reached the edge of the water, panting and sobbing and nearly screaming and-shit.

Harley let out a guttural scream across the lake, filling it with everything he’d pushed away for the last few days. He stared out across the clear water, still panting and tears now rolling down his face and he sucked in another breath and screamed again.

“WHY?” He shouts at the lake, or maybe the sky. It was too nice of a day for Tony to be gone, and the birds were chirping and people seemed hopeful and happy of all things and he sucks in another breath. “WHY?”

It fucking figures the Harley only realized that he thought of Tony as his dad or uncle or something only when he was dead, and it fucking figures that Tony dies after he found some kind of happiness, and it fucking figures that Harley never got a chance to say anything because he was stupid and his last words to the closest person he’ll ever get to a dad are “See you next month.” Harley crumples to his knees, his chest shaking with sobs and tears streaming down his face. He can feel the stupidly soft grass, he can feel the nice breeze on his face and he cries harder. This place is so beautiful and peaceful and it’s _not fair._

Harley couldn’t say how long he’s there, but he stays until he doesn’t have any more tears left to cry, until all that’s left are wretched sobs and pained gasps. He looks up towards the lake, looks at the pathways surrounding it. _When it gets warmer, we’ll go kayaking if you promise to stay in the damn boat. We’re not repeating last year._

Shit, it’s like he’s still right there, the voice, the winning smile, the tone, everything. Harley turns to shoot back a snarky retort, and he’s not there to hear it. It’s like ripping his heart into pieces all over again, constantly destroying itself ever since he got that damn call.

“I’m sorry,” Harley gasps towards the lake, because this is who Tony Stark is to him. Just a man with some wrenches, a genius brain and a family he’s trying to keep whole. “I’m sorry I was a pain in the ass, and I’m sorry for breaking the car.”

Harley takes another deep breath and he looks up, looks to the tree that Tony told him he was going to build a swing for Morgan on. He was going to let Harley help him. Not anymore.

“I’m sorry I never told you,” Harley starts, his voice catching in his throat as he ends with the phrase “how much you meant” There were so many things that he should have done, so many things he should have said, but he could just hope that Tony’s spirit stuck around or something and he could hear him. “I’ll see you on the other side. Don’t miss me too much, yeah? I have a bunch of shit to invent first.”

He tries for flippant, the same flippant that Tony had used on him all those years ago in Tennessee as his brain was falling apart, but it doesn’t work. His voice catches, and he feels like he’s going to sob again, and oh god, what else can he even say to Tony? There’s so much, but there’s not enough, and Tony is gone and-

He feels a hand on his shoulder and he turns to see Happy standing behind him, looking only a little more put together than Pepper did. Did they see this coming? Did they know?

Happy wraps his arms around Harley in a hug and he melts into it. Happy understands him, he thinks. And that’s something.

Harley winds up sobbing into Happy’s suit, but the man doesn’t mention it.

He sticks in the back of this mini send-off, and he sees the bouquet. Everyone’s brought a flower or two that they weave into the patchwork along with a quiet goodbye, a few quick words. Pepper lets it go into the lake, and Harley tries not to look at it, opting to sway a bit awkwardly in the back. Tony is gone.

Dammit, he knows this. But this feels different from the Snap. More real, less global. One person is dead, not 3 trillion. Well, actually two. And that made Harley nearly cry again, because Nat was the one who taught him how to toss someone over his shoulder like a badass while Tony videotaped Nebula’s quiet laughter and-shit.

Nebula. Nebula’s here. He sees her right in front of him. She’s the only one near the back that should be in the front with the rest of the closer party. She spent so much time at this lake with Tony, eating dinner and trying to fix earthly cars, and it’s not fair that she’s back here. She should get to say a real good-bye.

Tomorrow is the first weekend of the month, and Harley shifts his weight and walks up behind her, tapping her shoulder. He needs to get her to the front.

“Do you think there’ll be a dinner tomorrow?” He asks, his voice rougher than he expects. Nebula doesn’t flinch; she’s used to his stupid quirks by now, he hopes. She just turns to look at him, and Harley thinks he can see tear tracks down her cheeks, and Harley nearly stutters back. According to Rocket, Nebula had only ever cried when Gamora died. “Nebula doesn’t cry,” Rocket told him, “she covers up sadness with knives.”

Well, here she was, knife at her side, and crying. She looked barely hopeful as she shot a look towards Pepper.

“I think we should ask.”

The Avengers were dispersing around to mourn in their own ways, and Harley squared his shoulders and walked up to the little conglomeration at the front. He could feel Nebula following him at the surprise of the Guardians, and he could feel as both of them curled into themselves the more steps they took, because what they were asking felt wrong. But Nebula being in the back also felt wrong, so Harley felt like they balanced themselves out.

They sneak past Captain America and Thor and the rest of the procession, ignoring a teenager who’s face Harley vaguely recognizes while he’s standing next to May, a guy in a goatee that was barely keeping it together and the confused looks he got for being there. They didn’t matter.

He reached the rest of the group, and Pepper looked straight at him and smiled. It was the most broken, destroyed smile that Harley had ever seen and it was on Pepper’s face. The strongest person he had ever known was completely wrecked.

“Hi,” was all he could think to say, trying to stop those damn tears again. He would not cry, not right now.

“Do you think you could pick up some pizza for dinner tomorrow?” Pepper asks him, her voice cracking so badly that Harley can barely understand her, and now he can feel the tears on his cheeks. Dinner without Tony Stark. That’s what the world has come to. He wants to say that it’s ok as he realizes his premise to come up here drying up; It was just him trying to get as close to what is left of Tony, this little family they made in five years. But he wants to see them, and he’s too selfish to tell her that dinner wasn’t needed. He thinks it was.

“I think I can get some,” Rhodey murmurs to Pepper, giving her a quiet half-hug before he walks through the crowd. Happy takes Morgan inside, May and the teenager follow, the goatee guy stumbles through a portal, Nebula goes back to the Guardians, and Pepper is left on the pier alone, with him.

“I told him he was going to get himself killed,” she says as she looks to the water, with barely and preamble. “But he didn’t listen,”

“He-“ Harley can’t think of what to say. Every single thing he’s thinking sounds so wrong to say aloud, and the tears haven’t stopped. How can he describe this so it feels less wrong? “He died saving half the universe. That’s…that’s the most Tony Stark thing I can think of.”

Pepper is crying now, deep sobs wracking her body and Harley gives her a long hug. Words…words are useless sometimes.

* * *

Harley shows up in the morning, the same way he always had. Hawkeye had held a midnight memorial for Natasha, and Rhodey had texted him, so he’d been up late. He’d cried then too; Nat had taught him how to throw a punch and smile when his heart was breaking. He just…he couldn’t follow her advice right now.

Nat was the greatest reluctant mom friend, just like Nebs was the greatest reluctant adopted sister, that a kid like him could have ever hoped for. It was more than he deserved, and she deserved a hell of a lot better than what she had gotten. As Hawkeye shot some light-up arrows into the sky, he opened the arc-reactor shaped toolbox Tony and Nat had helped him come up with on one sunny fall day, showering golden, red, and blue sparks in the sky that formed her hourglass symbol. Rhodey and Nebs did the little salute thing they’d developed one dinner(Curry and rice, he remembered), and Rocket mimicked it. Harley gazed up at the hourglass.

“You’ve wiped the red in your ledger,” He heard Clint say in a gruff voice, and Harley could feel the tears on his face. Nebs bowed her head and Rhodey cried. It was just as wrong as Pepper, just as wrong as Tony and Nat being just…gone. The only way they those two could be truly at peace, Stephen Strange had muttered to him. That was depressed goatee guy, apparently.

Harley goes down to the lab, and he sees the robots. He never thought they could beep sadly. They didn’t know where their dad was and they missed him. Harley has to sit down on the rickety old spinning chair and explain to them he isn’t coming back.

The first time he ever calls Tony Dad out loud is to tell his robots, his children, that he’s dead. Why is he thinking about it now? Happy comes down at the sound of distressed beeping, and he takes the chair next to Harley. They sit down and wait for it to subside.

“How’s school?”

“It’s….” Harley can’t think of anything to say. He’s forgotten what’s been happening. “I guess they gotta figure out what they’re gonna do about the guys that came back. I think they still have their final exams to take.”

“That’s pretty rough. Lose five years and turn in an English essay?”

The world was still staggering under the sudden population, and the only thing schools could think to do was keep on business as normal. The curriculum? The same. The students? Eh, they’d pick up where they left off. The only difference was the memes, he was told.

“It is what it is.”

Happy made a disgruntled noise at the phrase, and Harley responded with an amused hum before they lapsed back to a comfortable silence. That sentence was the absolute worst.

“Have you done your homework?”

“Oh, come o- _Happy_.”

“Come on. You know Tony’d-” Happy stuttered over the name and Harley suddenly became very interested in the jeans he was wearing as he tried to force down the lump in his throat. “Tony’d want you to keep your grades up.”

“That’s” Oh boy, that’s a hell of a voice crack. Harley cleared his throat and tried again. “That’s not fair, Hap.”

“Unless you want to work in the lab, which…” Happy trailed off and Harley looked around. The room seemed lifeless and empty, the bots no longer beeping, processing their grief, and the lights dimmed. It didn’t look like it did when Tony was there.

“What do you remember about calculus?”

Happy does his “Forehead of Security,” stuff without giving him a response and Harley chuckles at him as he does his homework, and they both try their best not to think about why room feels so empty. Rhodey walks in an hour or so later, and he joins in on the paperwork party. Never let it be said that their group handled their grief properly.

Nebs shows up a few hours later, her arm still a mottle of red and gold that makes it look like Iron Man armor. May comes with the teenager in tow. The kid, who Harley had finally dimly remembered as Peter Parker, looks absolutely destroyed, a look Harley recognizes from the mirror five years ago. And on whoever was left after the Snap. And that goatee guy, and half the Avengers…wow, the world really was all kinds of fucked up.

They set themselves up around the dinner table like they always have, Pepper and Morgan coming down at the last minute. Morgan has refused to take off her homemade arc reactor and Pepper’s still wearing the dress from the funeral, and they both have tear tracks on their faces. Harley nearly starts crying gain. Nearly.

Peter and Rhodey, they do cry, with the tears rolling down their faces. Harley hadn’t expected heartbreak to feel so literal, but seeing Rhodey cry again, he feels his chest rip in two.

There is no relief or comfort, just dour champagne glasses and shaking reassurance. The first dinner without the man who brought them all together. Nebula raises her glass, quietly. And then she looks to him and Pepper, because they’re sitting next to each other, using the other for support.

“To-“ Nebula cuts herself off before she says Iron Man, frowning. Harley feels it too. That tightness in his chest at raising a glass to Iron Man in the lake house. _Don’t talk shop at the lake house,_ Tony’s voice reminds him. So he raises his own glass to match Nebs.

“To Tony Stark,” He affirms. He catches the other teenager looking at him in a stunned, subdued silence, and he remembers what Captain Rogers had mentioned five years ago, after the Ultron, after the “Civil War,” after Nukes and sacrifice and near-death. There were no better words he could think to say.

“To Tony Stark…Earth’s best defender.” He calls out to the room, to Tony and to Nat too, wherever they are. The rest of the room murmurs the call, nodding in agreement.

And Harley downs his champagne in one go as he says good-bye.


End file.
